A Brief History of American Wizarding Society
by Coral Skipper
Summary: It is what it sounds like. A hopefully logical history of what Wizarding Society in America.


Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Author's note: I'm bored, and I felt like writing this. Anyone who wants to use this background on American Magical Society can. Just let me know you're using this. In fact, I'm BEGGING you to use this if you're writing a "Harry visits America" fic.

On American Wizarding Society

To the average Brittish Wizard, going to America is nothing short of a culture shock. Many of the assumptions that a wizard has such as the role of magic in life, the power of old families, and the importance of blood purity. Even some of the most basic terms are different. For example never will an American wizard refer to a non-magical user as a "muggle", even if they are in Britain. Instead they refer to such people as "non-magicals" or NMs for short. This is just a couple of the most basic differences in culture.

To appreciate why the differences exist, one must appreciate the people that immigrated to the Americas in the magical world. Unsurprisingly you got many people that mirrored their muggle counter-parts in immigration: I.e you got younger sons that would not be receiving an inheritance coming to America to make their fortunes. You also got some more obscure religious groups immigrating to the Americas. Chief among those were the Merlinites who believed that Merlin wrote against excessive use of magic whenever a simple non-magic solution would work. Still, far and away the largest group that chose to immigrate were half-bloods and muggle borns.

The result of these being the largest groups of immigrants is that you got a group of people that inherently did not care about blood status. It certainly did not help the younger sons, the Merlinites felt it important to avoid using magic whenever possible, so they didn't care, and of course blood purity offended the half bloods and muggle-born. Furthermore it quickly became apparent that life in the new world was tough, and that even the staunchest supporter of all things magical realized that they needed to work with the muggles to survive. It was out of this early spirit of co-operation between muggles and magicals that the wizards in America seemingly all at once decided that they disliked the term muggle, and it was replaced by, what Americans feel is, the more respectful term NM. The term muggle in America quickly became a racial slur that almost no wizard in America would allow, and it is why British wizards get dirty looks from Americans when they use the term in front of them.

During the days of colonization the British Ministry of Magic took the same philosophy on governing the magical community that their muggle counter-parts did, meaning that so long as they paid taxes and swore fealty to the ministry, they really did not care what they did. Unsurprisingly, the American wizarding governments took a similar route to the muggle governments. In wizarding communities, like their muggle counter-parts, the main form of government was that of the town hall. As time passed, the American wizards came to identify with their colonies every bit as much as the muggles did.

Following what was called the French and Indian War in America, the muggle parliament decided to start exerting their control over the colonies. Though the wizards largely stayed out of the war, the ministry decided that it was time to start exerting their own control over the colonies. The American wizards responded about as well as the American muggles. When the first shots in the American Revolution were officially fired, a special congress of wizards was called to decide if they would join with the muggles in revolt. It was nearly unanimously agreed upon, and immediately certain units of troops were integrated with wizards and muggles. When the Declaration of Independence was singed, fully one fourth of the signatories were wizards.

The war was an embarrassment for the ministry. They simply did not have anything resembling the resources of Parliament to send against the rebels. Furthermore they refused to work with Parliament to help put down the rebellion of the muggles, and did not get any help in fighting their wizards. As a result the war was over officially for the American wizards by 1778. The American wizarding community did not view it as such, though. They felt that until all of the colonies, magical and non-magical, were free from British control that the war would not be over. Thus the Continental Army had wizards with them fighting against the Red Coats until the war ended in the early 1780s.

After the Articles of Confederation failed for everyone, the Congressional Congress was called. Unknown to American Muggles, the greatest arguments in writing the constitution were not over slavery and representation, but rather the magical government. One thing was certain, though, and that was that the magical government would be a part of the larger American government. Furthermore, any provision and amendment in the non-magical constitution, also holds true for the magicals. Ultimately, it was decided that there would be a separate Magical Congress, and a Secretary of Magic, both of whom would be answerable to larger Muggle government and President. As a result, when American Wizards and Witches vote, they vote for both magical offices and muggle offices.

Perhaps more than any other society, with the exception of Japan, muggle and magical life runs parallel to each other in America. When the Second Great Awakening happened, and the issue of slavery became a hot button issue for muggles, so too did it become one for magicals. While magicals never took blacks as slaves, they did have house elves. The movement in the northern states was to find a way to break the bond that required house elves to be slaves. By about 1850 and the California Compromise, the spell was perfected. House elves still felt the need to serve, but they also realized the value of what they did, and those that were freed with the spell expected to be compensated properly for their work. As a result, any non-slave state became a non-house elf slave state also. The families that continued to hold house elves, moved to the South.

By the time Abraham Lincoln was elected President, things were nearly as strained in the magical world as they were in the muggle world. Given the amount of power over the wizarding world the President has in the American constitution it is no surprise that, like their muggle counter-parts, Lincoln's election was a catalyst for secession. As they had done with the Constitution of the United States, the Confederate wizarding government was integrated into the Confederate muggle government.

American (muggle) history holds that their Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history. Muggles had moved fully from smooth bore guns, to guns with rifled barrels. This provided a much more accurate gun. Unfortunately for the muggles, they still relied on the basic strategies of Napoleon which expected the less accurate smooth bore rifles. Furthermore the main ammunition used, the mini ball, was a brutal piece of technology that often shattered bones, which lead to a high rate of amputation. To make matters even worse, if that's possible, muggle medical technology was well behind their weapons technology.

The end result, for witches and wizards involved in that war, was that almost none of them were used as actual battle wizards. Magical healing was well ahead of muggle healing, and any wizard was automatically assigned to medical units. Most historians point to this event as the reason why American medical magic is considered the finest in the world. Simply stated, coming out of the American Civil War the Americans had a large number of wizards and witches that had experience in healing, and had seen the limitations of it. Even though only a small fraction of the wizards who were healers during the Civil War ended up further exploring healing, both muggle and magical, it was a large enough number that, in the end, America had more than double the number of magical healers dedicated to research than any other country.

When the war ended, the congress, largely controlled by the North passed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the American Constitution, and these Amendments had, arguably, more of an impact on American Wizarding Society than muggle. The Thirteenth Amendment to the American Constitution banned slavery in America, in all it's forms. For muggles this merely meant black people. For wizards, though, this had wider impact as it freed house elves, and any other race of magical sentient that some wizard might have had as a slave. The Fourteenth Amendment gave any sentient, not just humans, full citizenship rights. For the magical world this was a revolutionary thing, as, in theory at least, the government was supposed to treat any magical sentient, such as a goblin, exactly the same way as they would a human. The one caveat to this was that, unless the sentient could pass as fully human convincingly, they could only run for congress on the magical side due to the, in America, much maligned "Statue of Secrecy" treaties that the international community forced on them. Finally the Fifteenth Amendment granted the right to vote to all sentients, meaning that anyone and everyone could vote.

As a result of those three Amendments being passed, America saw a large immigration of magical sentients to her shores. Despite the promised equality that many expected, in some areas, particularly the South, many of these sentients were still discriminated against. In one of the few cases where American Wizarding society did not mimic their muggle counter-parts, such discrimination lasted for approximately one muggle generation. The explanation for why this time period was so short given by most American history books is that many of the wizards who fought in the Revolution were still alive, and once they got used to the idea of magical sentients being equal, they were actually embarrassed that they didn't make sure that was the case in the first place, and encouraged the younger generation to think about that.

In the muggle world, both here and in America, the late 19th to early 20th century was known as an era where industry boomed, and it is also where the main split between American Wizarding Society and our own, Brittish, society took place. While many British wizards snubbed the incoming technology, and reacted by becoming more old fashioned, the Americans went the opposite way. As most lived their lives mostly as muggles, using magic to help them live their lives as a tool, instead of letting magic fill their souls and truly live magical lives, it was impossible for them not to encounter the technology. Many became fascinated and, given the Americans long standing hatred of the Statute of Secrecy, they soon started experimenting on combining magic and technology. Magical industries, making what they called "Magitech", thrived in America. Most older countries were cautious about this Magitech, though nearly all of the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan embraced the Magitech. This is why British magical relations with those nations are, at best, tense.

Time passed, and World War I got started. When America finally got involved in the muggle conflict, the wizarding congress voted to not fight as they still believed, truthfully, that it wasn't their war. It should be noted that just because the Wizarding Congress voted that they would not fight, did not mean they would not help out in the war. Instead America saw the return of the Wizard Medics that they saw during the Civil War. Many international historians feel that the Wizarding Congress's move to not "fight" was splitting hairs, though nearly every American insists there is a clear difference. In their minds they did not wish to fight, but they didn't want their country-men to die.

While European muggle communities went almost directly in the Great Depression, a depression that the magical community avoided by staying above muggle politics and not industrializing, the American magical community went into a time of over-production and over-prosperity during the 1920s, just like the American muggles. Equally like the America muggles, when the Great Depression hit America, it hit them badly. Truthfully, for the 1930's nearly anything that can be said about the muggle community so far as the Great Depression was concerned, can be said about the magical community and vice versa. This includes ambivalence of Grindlewald. Most viewed him as a European problem that had nothing to do with them

In all likely hood the Americans would have stayed out of, what they and the muggles refer to as, World War II if the Japanese had not bombed Pearl Harbour. Many European wizards do not understand why exactly it took this to rouse the American Wizards, and have an even harder trouble appreciating why it was so strong. To be as succinct as possible, the attack pissed off the Americans, both wizarding and non-wizarding populations. Their response was in anger, and they brought it fully to bear on all involved.

Unlike previous conflicts where American Wizards stayed on mainly as healers, many wizards joined the American military to fight. These wizards were most often placed in fighter plane squadrons for two reasons. One, many of the wizards had experience flying, albeit on a broom, and it seemed that the basic skills carried over, providing for extremely capable fighter pilots. The second, and arguably more important, reason is that the cockpit of a fighter plane allowed a place where American wizards could cast a last second spell to save them without anyone noticing.

When the war in Europe ended, many American Wizards felt almost sad that it was over. They didn't miss the fighting or the death, but most had seen pictures of Nazi concentration camps. To say they were disgusted is a bit of an understatement. They knew the people in charge of the camps were Hitler and Grindlewald, and they were angry that both had died before they had their chance to get their hands on the two.

On the subject of Grindlewald, it should be noted that no American will ever refer to him as such. Uniformly they call him by his muggle alias "Heinrich Himmler". Most Americans feel that calling him by his true name does two egregious things: The first is that it lessons his actions against muggles, as they feel that when called Grindlewald it makes it seem that a wizard was only killing a few muggles, and thus it really was not that big of a deal. The second, and much more important is that Americans feel that when refering to Grindlewald as Grindlewald it makes it seem as if he controlled Adolph Hitler's actions, and that Hitler could be replaced with any other nameless patsy. Americans disagree with that assessment in a visceral manner, contending that, although Grindlewald was powerful, he could not have achieved what he did without Hitler.

Following World War II while most British Wizards remained largely ignorant of atomic weapons and the cold war, American witches and wizards were the opposite. They were all too aware of the problems from the Soviet Union, and many wizards joined the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, to help against the Soviets and, hopefully prevent nuclear Armageddon. Largely due to fact that that most of the missions that American wizards ran were black operations, meaning that, if caught, the American government would deny anything and everything about the individual, they were given some of the most innovative pieces of Magitech. Indeed, by the end of the Cold War the specific technology that wizarding spies used had come to be known as "Niventech", taken from Science Fiction author Larry Niven's statement that "Any magic sufficiently advanced becomes indistinguishable from technology". The point being is that only the engineers of the tech knew where the magic ended and the science began.

During the first rise of Voldemort, the American government, offered lots of help to fight the dark lord. In the eyes of the Americans they saw the rise of another Hitler, and wanted to do everything they could to prevent it. The Wizengamot and Minister of Magic turned down any and all offers for help, and loudly proclaimed that any American wizarding working for the American government would automatically be locked in Azkaban for life, and that it would be considered an international incident. Upon getting that response from the Ministry of Magic someone "leaked" it to the American Wizarding media. Though it was a cause of embarrassment outside of the country, the Minister of Magic stood by the statement fully. Of course this was helped by the fact that the Daily Prophet proudly stood behind the Minister in this, meaning that the idea had a large amount of public support. During the second rise of Voldemort the Americans, more out of concern for their own security then anything else, again made the offer. This time the Minister of Magic did not threaten to throw anyone who who worked for the American Government in Jail. Instead Fudge, and later reaffirmed by Scrimgeour, made an even bolder statement by loudly proclaiming that anyone working for the American government would be killed on site. Thus during both uprisings we had no help from the Americans.

End.

Okay, a few notes. First off, the main reason I wrote this is because I've read too many pieces of fanfiction where Harry comes to America, and American society is nearly identical to Brittish wizarding society, even going so far as using the same currency. That was a huge annoyance, as naturally there would be differences between the two societies. I also got annoyed in pieces where Harry comes to America and the differences in society largely seem arbitrary. When writing this, I tried to make every difference in the societies to be logical, and things snowballed from there. A good example of this is the idea of what sorts of wizards would come to America. I figured the same kinds of non-magicals that came, younger sons, people escaping religious persecution, etc. If those are the people that are coming over, what are their opinions of normal magical society going to be. I figured not exactly the highest, so then I had to work out what that meant. I will acknowledge that perhaps following American history as closely as I did was a bit arbitrary, but it made my life easier and I don't particularly feel that guilty about it.

Reviews are welcome, as always.


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